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Trenteres
What has twice the firepower, hitpoints and cost of a Deceres, but also has vastly lower mobility? this: the Trenteres. With its hitpoints and powerful four-shot attack, the Trenteres is not so much a battleship as it is an ancient-era floating fortress: you need only park this monster of a war machine near your shores, and let it rip with its powerful vessels into enemies as they come into range. The only issue this unit has is that it is fairly easy to pick off owing to its cost — each one of these babies is well worth the price of a single wonder, so it is no wonder (heh heh) that the Egyptian player may not build more than one of these. Additionally, the Trenteres has an attack penalty versus infantry and cavalry, so don't expect it to be the wonder weapon of choice when it comes to engaging enemy units on the shore, that job should fall to your other warships instead. The best use of Trentereme-class warships would be to function as "floating fortresses" - either to function as a mobile "harbour defence", or as a siege support vessel owing to its powerful multishot payload. This ship is useful, especially in Nile Delta or Great Lake scenarios, where you can build these to secure harbours or channels to prevent heavier enemy fleets from gaining control of your territory. Alternatively, in areas with open waters, you can bring this unit forward to besiege enemy settlements; it functions somewhat as a hardened floating Ballista. As mentioned, owing to its cost, and its vulnerability to fire warships, a Trenteres should not deploy without a complement of lighter warships, such as Penteredes and fire rafts of your own. See also *''Deceres'' *''Kothon'' Background In order to maintain their overseas possessions (and also to patrol the Nile) the Ptolemies retained a substantial navy. The Alexandrian poet Theokritos praised Egypt’s ships and Ptolemy Il’s control of land, sea, and river. Like other Hellenistic kingdoms, Egypt ultimately participated in a late fourth century ‘‘arms race’’ to construct larger warships, the triremes of the Classical Greek world being supplemented and replaced by ships known as ‘‘fours,’’ ‘‘fives,’’ ‘‘sixes’’ and so on, up to ‘‘tens’’ (on a regular basis at least), the names deriving from the number of rowers on each oar. Given the cost of building ships with imported timber and the number of rowers required (recruited from the Aegean, Asia Minor, and Phoenicia, as well as Egypt itself), a fleet of this size was a major undertaking. As Egyptian control of overseas territories diminished through the third century BCE and later, the fleet diminished in importance. However, even at the time of Caesar’s war against Pompey and the subsequent Alexandrian, War Egypt remained a significant naval power, able to equip and man large numbers of ships. Plutarch records that Cleopatra VII provided 200 ships for Antony’s fleet at Actium in 31BCE, although these included cargo ships. Notes In reality, the Trenteres should have been far longer and less crowded than it is depicted actually in Kings & Conquerors. References *Worldhistory.biz; "The Ptolemaic navy and overseas garrisons" Screenshot_2018-05-09_02.07.16.png| Screenshot_2018-08-29_11.11.29.png| Category:Ptolemaic Egyptians Category:Super units Category:Siege ships